MakerBot Industries

Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, stopped by MakerBot HQ this afternoon to chat with MakerBot CEO and co-founder, Bre Pettis.

Markowitz admires a giant 3D-printed chess piece

Bre explains how The Replicator works

Roger Yu explains the explosive growth of 3D printing among entrepreneurs and hobbyists in USA TODAY Tech.

Bonus: This awesome video interview with Bre Pettis from inside the Botcave!

Here’s another awesome Thingiverse camera item: this time, it’s an adapter to use the iPhone camera to take photos from your microscope.  This looks like an excellent way to get those images of plates into your lab reports.  This should be handy whether you’re checking your wine barrels for a brettanomyces outbreak or figuring out how to fight vicious, rapidly mutating bacteria!  Or just doing nice, safe science projects.  It’s up to you.

Good work Boogie!  Keep the awesome sciencey designs coming!

iPhone to Microscope mount by Boogie

This thing basically holds your iphone in position with the microscope eyepiece. It allows you to turn your iphone into a digital camera/view screen for a binocular type microscope. Great for group viewings or capturing microscopic images with your iphone and microscope. Great tool for classrooms. The mount was designed specifically for the Edmund Scientific binocular type microscope. It slips right over the eye pieces. If you don't have an iPhone, you can print just the base mount and use rubber bands to hold your phone/camera on.

This thing brought to you by

Crain’s New York Business just featured MakerBot in an article on the growing presence of 3D printing in NYC. The story looks at the expansion of the industry and the potential that it offers the city.

A sneak peek from the article: “The technology is transforming industries such as jewelry-making, medical devices and architecture. New York City, with its robust design trade, may be a natural home for 3-D printing. Indeed, the Bloomberg administration is betting that the technology will create new businesses and help existing ones be innovative and more competitive.”

Keith and I are on the road again, finding ourselves in the middle of Orlando, Florida at MegaCon, a comics/science fiction/horror/fantasy/games/anime fandom convention said to be second only to ComicCon for costumes, massive crowds, and enthusiasm. I have been hugged, knighted, threatened with tree-claws (to the best of my understanding), and danced at by such a wild panoply of characters, and that was during the lighter attended first day. How have I been responding to this? By blowing minds, one zombie-witch-soldier-Sailor-Moon-droid-monster at a time with The MakerBot Replicator.

It must date me to admit that I recognize the Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy, and classic Marvel and DC characters, but get a bit hazy re: the fine distictions among a slew of girls-with-cat-ears and blue-mohawk-massive-sword anime costumes. (Co-worker Ben would definitely recognize all of the anime characters, and I’m tempted to send him pictures for his consultation.) But the level of creativity and ingenuity on display with costumes, props, and fan-collectables is considerably impressive. Part of the reason is that Stan Lee is here, and people have traveled thousands of miles for the chance to meet him and get his autograph. (Because he ain’t a young whipper-snapper.)

In honor of Stan Lee we have been printing and giving away tiny Thor’s Hammers that I created as a keychain derivative of Skimbal’s version. And we are also taking request for a huge variety of comics and fandom related elements from Thingiverse.com.

If you are nearby, press through the throngs of 300k people to come to Booth #529 to visit us. We have a secret show special that is for in-person visitors only!

There’s a nice little piece over on the Tinkercad blog about a successful program at the Marymount School here in New York.  Jaymes Dec has been using Tinkercad and MakerBots to teach the students about design and fabrication, and the results are pretty rad.

If you like pictures of young people smiling next to MakerBots or charming, whimsical designs made by children, it’s definitely worth a read.

P.S. If you’re interested in printing these designs, the Tinkercad sharing site does let you download an .stl — just click on the “Print 3d” button and then click “Download stl” in the popup.

The folks from CBS News came by the BotFarm last week and took some photos for this awesome slideshow! Scroll through to see a collection of some of our favorite MakerBotted objects and the Replicators and Thing-O-Matics in action.

A pride of ten mighty MakerBot Replicators have been striding about the country since mid January. And my, have they been busy:

• Meeting hundreds of thousands of people at a certain trade show in Las Vegas.
• Guest appearing on Live! with Kelly.
• Furiously printing out a time-scripted dualstrusion logo for The Endgadget Show.
• Representing for the “science fact” robots for science fiction/fantasy/video game/comics lovers at MEGACON.
• Producing fine sculptural pieces on display at the Affordable Art Fair in Los Angeles.
• And svelting about among the fashion elite as models for Asher Levine’s New York Fashion Week show.

But there remains a public debut that we at MakerBot are even more excited about: the shipping launch of pre-sale MakerBots out to our most eager and enthusiastic MakerBot Operators so far. A sprinkle of hundreds and hundreds of new and veteran Operators across six continents¹ who have seen what our new machines can do and are eager to invite The Replicator into their homes, schools, and businesses.

To make this tremendous boost of productivity possible, the entire MakerBot team has been leveling up. We’ve been adding staff, training and encouraging each other, and turning our Brooklyn facilities inside out to accomodate all of the new moving parts necessary to make our Replicator launch the smoothest MakerBot BotLaunch of all time.

I’d like to introduce you to a team of real heroes — the men and women working full-tilt to make the launch of The MakerBot Replicator as a fully-assembled kit a reality. A team that germinated from Colin’s one-man Fully-Assembled Thing-O-Matic operation a year ago into a deeply-integrated Productor/BotBuilder/Tester commando task force today. A task force laboring deep in the belly of the BotCave like a team of tough-as-nails sandhogs moving the earth under Manhattan.

Our machines have the word “Brooklyn” laser-etched into the back left corner, just above the unique MakerBot serial number: a real point of pride for our Brooklyn-based company. If you have ever had any question as to why that word is there, here’s your answer: our robots are assembled, tested, and shipped by a crew of remarkable humans, right here in Brooklyn, New York.

Watch Annelise’s video and then check out this slideshow for more portraits of some of the heroes of MakerBot.

1. Antarctica, we have our eye on you. [↩]

Stubby Screwdriver Handle by tomlombardi

Recently I moved one of my daughter’s pint-sized bookshelves from one wall to another.  This isn’t as trivial a task as you might first think.  As you may or may not know, it is recommended that children’s furniture above a certain height and weight be secured to the wall. ¹  The new location that had been selected for the bookshelf was almost right next to a corner – about four inches away.  The problem was that I had a hard time finding a screwdriver short enough to fit between the wall and the bookshelf!  In the end I was able to locate a small cheap screwdriver that came with a some-assembly-required piece of Swedish furniture.

That said…  had I been half as smart as tomlombardi, I would have just made one!

I needed a stubby screwdriver for a project and I almost bought one from a hardware store…Duh! I can print one! All you need are the 1/4″ hex bits which most people already have.

Stubby Screwdriver Handle by tomlombardi

I needed a stubby screwdriver for a project and I almost bought one from a hardware store...Duh! I can print one! All you need are the 1/4" hex bits which most people already have.

This thing brought to you by

1. In case of the child climbing the furniture or an earthquake having a big piece of furniture strapped to a wall might keep your child from being trapped underneath. [↩]

The press are weighing in on MakerBot’s NYFW collaboration with Asher Levine…

CNN’s Laurie Segall says “3D printed glasses are Fashion Week’s hottest accessory” - Read the article

MTV Style exclaims “Yay, 3D printing for everyone!” – Read the article

BlackBook Magazine calls The Replicator a “highlight of the show” – Read the article

Portfolio.com ponders, “Can 3-D printers revolutionize fashion?” – Read the article